Cybersecurity bill CISPA tramples on Fourth Amendment rights

Silicon Valley’s members of Congress know that cybersecurity can be accomplished without destroying Americans’ online privacy. It’s too bad that the House of Representatives didn’t listen to them.

Now it’s up to the Senate or, if it fails, a presidential veto to stop the Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act, known as CISPA, in its current form.

The House last week voted 287-127 for this legislation, which gives the government easier access to data from Internet companies. The intent is to help protect tech firms such as Facebook and Google and financial institutions from cyber-attacks and theft of intellectual property; sharing information with the federal government will help to identify sophisticated hackers and allow companies to react quickly to attacks. But CISPA takes government access too far.